1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to an improved air bearing surface for disk drive sliders, and in particular to an improved apparatus and method of configuring the air bearing surfaces of disk drive sliders in order to produce high temperatures on the surfaces of the disks during thermally-assisted recordings
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a data access and storage system consists of one or more Storage devices that store data on magnetic or optical storage media. For example, a magnetic storage device is known as a direct access storage device (DASD) or a hard disk drive (HDD) and includes one or more disks and a disk controller to manage local operations concerning the disks. The hard disks themselves are usually made of aluminum alloy or a mixture of glass and ceramic, and are covered with a magnetic coating. Typically, one to six disks are stacked vertically on a common spindle that is turned by a disk drive motor at several thousand revolutions per minute (rpm).
A typical HDD also utilizes an actuator assembly. The actuator moves magnetic read/write heads to the desired location on the rotating disk so as to write information to or read data from that location. Within most HDDs, the magnetic read/write head is mounted on a slider. A slider generally serves to mechanically support the head and any electrical connections between the head and the rest of the disk drive system. The slider is aerodynamically shaped to glide over moving air in order to maintain a uniform distance from the surface of the rotating disk, thereby preventing the head from undesirably contacting the disk.
Typically, a slider is formed with an aerodynamic pattern of protrusions, or so called air bearing surface (ABS) on its body that enables the slider to fly at a constant height close to the disk during operation of the disk drive. A slider is associated with each side of each platter and flies just over the platter's surface. Each slider is mounted on a suspension to form a head gimbal assembly (HGA). The HGA is then attached to a semi-rigid actuator arm that supports the entire head flying unit. Several semi-rigid arms may be combined to form a single movable unit having either a linear bearing or a rotary pivotal bearing system.
The head and arm assembly is linearly or pivotally moved utilizing a magnet/coil structure that is often called a voice coil motor (VCM). The stator of a VCM is mounted to a base plate or casting on which the spindle is also mounted. The base casting with its spindle, actuator VCM, and internal filtration system is then enclosed with a cover and seal assembly to ensure that no contaminants can enter and adversely affect the reliability of the slider flying over the disk. When current is fed to the motor, the VCM develops force or torque that is substantially proportional to the applied current. The arm acceleration is therefore substantially proportional to the magnitude of the current. As the read/write head approaches a desired track, a reverse polarity signal is applied to the actuator, causing the signal to act as a brake, and ideally causing the read/write head to stop and settle directly over the desired track.
There have been many successful attempts to increase the performance of disk drives. One apparatus and method for improving disk drives employs thermomagnetic recording technology. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,317,280 to Nakajima, et al. In that patent, a recording and reproducing head includes a floating slider, a heating head, a reproduction-use magnetic head as an MR head, and a recording-use magnetic head as a thin-film inductive head mounted on the floating slider. The heating section of the heating head has a width that is narrower than the widths of the reproduction-use magnetic head and recording-use magnetic head. In the recording layer of the disk, the coercive force of the recording layer at a recording temperature and saturation magnetization thereof at a reproduction temperature are adjusted, and the compensation temperature of the recording layer is adjusted to be substantially room temperature. The thermomagnetic recording and reproducing head can realize a narrow track without decreasing the widths of the recording-use magnetic head and reproduction-use magnetic head, thereby increasing the track density.
Still other prior art thermomagnetic recording technology utilize laser optical devices (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,288,981 to Yoshida, et al.) to provide a heat source. Although these devices are workable, they make the head structure complex and relatively expensive. Thus, an improved apparatus and method of providing a source of heat to be utilized in thermomagnetic recording in order to produce high temperatures on the surfaces of the disks during thermally-assisted recordings would be desirable.